


we're different you and I (except in the ways we're not)

by Sweven, writehandman



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Death, Destruction of Alderaan (Star Wars), Destruction of Katarr (Star Wars), F/M, Fanart, Force Visions, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Inline Art, Introspection, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Not Canon Compliant, Oneshot, Talk of suicide (of sorts), That's Not How The Force Works, swbb2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweven/pseuds/Sweven, https://archiveofourown.org/users/writehandman/pseuds/writehandman
Summary: Set after RotJ. A somewhat bittersweet character-introspective piece about Leia.After Endor things quiet down, and Leia is struggling to come to terms with who she is after losing her family and finding out that Vader is her father.When the Force calls her, she, as Luke did, goes into the jungle to face her fears. Here a ghost from millennia ago shares her own suffering, her own doubts and failures, and shows Leia that she needs to choose a path and soon.Beta credit:celinamarnissArtist credit:writehandman
Relationships: Bail Organa/Breha Organa, Leia Organa & Darth Vader, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Visas Marr, Visas Marr & Darth Nihilus
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41
Collections: Star Wars Big Bang 2020





	we're different you and I (except in the ways we're not)

As long as Leia could remember, she had been surrounded by people she couldn’t trust. 

She had been loved at her mother’s court on Alderaan—her parents had always made sure of that. Hers had been a happy childhood, and Leia had never wanted for company. But spies and Imperials had been everywhere, even on Alderaan, trying to meddle in the queen’s affairs. There had been whispers in dark corners and the Emperor had made sure that his presence could be felt even if he never set foot there. 

Early on her mother had taught her how to pretend to smile, to play nice with the vipers. How to assuage them with empty promises and send them on their way none the wiser. Leia had been a slow student, but a brilliant one.

The Senate had been worse. An awful place, brimming with politicians and guards all hoping to gain some scrap of power. No-one had known that only the Emperor stood to win anything by their incessant bickering and in-fighting.

The presence of the Dark Side draped over them all like a heavy shroud, though they had not known at the time. 

Her father had taught her to echo the words that would keep Alderaan safe, how to bite back the bile that would have aroused suspicion. Afterwards, he had taught her to wash the bitter taste from her mouth, showed her that there was another way. Leia had always been a rebel, one way or another. 

These days she was surrounded by the Rebellion. The New Republic, as Mon Mothma dared call their ragtag band of misfits. 

They were better than the Imperials could ever have hoped to be. Braver and kinder and more genuine than Leia had thought possible. All of them burned with the same fervent determination that her parents had recognised in Leia from a young age. 

Leia wasn’t used to being alone. She wasn’t used to being surrounded by nothing but good people either.

Overthrowing the Emperor had been an impossible dream but they had done it.

Endor lay behind them. It wasn’t the end of the war, but the victory shone like a beacon of hope for the Rebellion. For them, it was proof that their struggles _did_ matter, that a brighter future _was_ possible.

For the remnants of the Empire, it was a gaping void, a mockery, a desecration. The Emperor had held his regime together with the help of his Moffs and Admirals and their burning, fanatical fire, their belief in the cause. Their unquestioning loyalty hadn’t wavered despite the death of their leader, and the leaders of the Rebellion all warned against underestimating them. In some ways, the Empire was even more dangerous now, filled with rabid dogs instead of carefully controlled ones. 

A vacuum had to be filled, and the void left by the Emperor was enormous. The battle was far from over.

Leia was used to the prospect of relentless, never-ending work ahead and complaining had never been in her nature. These days, more than ever, there was a purpose, a hopefulness fueling the fire in her chest. 

Despite this, she struggled in ways she hadn’t before. 

"Let the Force flow through you," she heard the low whisper from the front of the room. The handful of students breathed in, quietly and deeply. The oxygen flowing to her head made her dizzy. 

After Endor, Luke had started training other Force-Sensitives. It wasn’t a formal Jedi Academy yet, the leadership of the Rebellion still thought it too risky, but Luke would guide any who asked for his help. The rumour of a Jedi Master with open arms was spreading across the galaxy, and more students arrived on Yavin IV every month. 

Leia had been his first student, but she found the lessons far from easy.

"Let go of your sense of self," Luke continued and Leia tried.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to let go, to reach that tranquil state of mind that Luke described. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the peace, the inner quiet—of course she did.

It was just that the longer she sat still, the less calm she became. 

Leia tried to concentrate, tried to reach for the Force, but it evaded her every attempt.

“Let the Force flow through you.” Leia didn’t need to open her eyes to know that he was talking to her. 

She could feel the Force. Had been able to all her life, though she hadn’t known what it was until Luke had called to her on Bespin. It had been calm, a quiet river at the back of her mind, flowing steadily. She’d drawn on it without knowing, had grown used to it constantly enveloping her.

These days it was distant and muddy, filled with snarled bends and dark patches of deep water that she was afraid to look too closely at. She reached with her mind, tried to make it flow through her as Luke said it should, but with every attempt it became harder. 

There was a swell of emotion under her skin as the lesson dragged on. A simmering fear that made her body prickle with the need to move, the need to find something tangible that she could bury her fingers in. 

She sat still until Luke ended the class.

As she rose from her kneeling position, Leia thought the swirl of emotion in her had calmed slightly, but as she met Luke’s eyes, she knew that he disagreed.

"You’re troubled, sister."

A shrug. "It’s difficult. But it takes time to learn, isn’t that what you keep saying? You didn’t become good at this immediately either."

"True," he said and for a moment Leia thought that might be the end of their conversation. "But I don’t think boneheaded persistence will help in your case."

Leia smiled at that. Talking with Luke always made everything easier.

"Walk with me," Luke started towards the exit.

When Leia had first stepped foot in the halls of the temple, she’d been impressed by the sheer magnitude of the place. She hadn’t thought that a small moon orbiting Yavin Prime would be the kind of place to have homed a religious sect capable of building structures such as this.

Luke had chuckled when she’d wondered aloud to him. He’d told her of how he could sense traces in the Force reaching back thousands of years, how Force-users had been drawn to this moon for eons. He’d said that there was a vergence in the Force here that made it easier to feel and draw on it. Leia had scoffed at that and silently thought that she’d never been less able to draw on the Force since returning here. 

Now she was used to the sand-covered halls, the yellowish-orange of the slabs of stone towering above them. It wasn’t quite home—nothing was—but it was close.

"You’re struggling," Luke said as they walked down a long, empty stretch of hallway. "I thought you’d prefer to work through it yourself, but I think I’m doing you a disservice by not acknowledging it."

Luke paused for a moment and Leia sensed a bit of his discomfort draining away from him. It seemed to be a thoughtless thing, something wholly natural. Jealousy sparked in Leia, that her brother, her _twin,_ was able to use the Force so easily, while she struggled with even touching it.

"There," he said, meeting her eyes for a moment. "Emotion. Leia, it’s controlling you more than you control it.”

"I thought you didn’t agree with the old Jedi on the whole ‘emotions are bad’ mantra," Leia said, ignoring the accusation.

Luke shook his head. "I don’t. The control is what matters."

They walked through a sunlit atrium where a handful of pilots were enjoying some well deserved downtime. They were clearly enjoying the way the walls of the temple siphoned some of the heat from the air, providing some relief from the oppressive humidity. Both Luke and Leia were greeted warmly and invited to play a round of sabacc. Their refusal earned them a few friendly jibes but the twins were both laughing as they exited the courtyard. 

"When I was on Dagobah," Luke turned serious again as they turned a corner to a hallway. "Yoda told me that I was too angry. Too impatient. I was desperate to become stronger, more powerful, more capable with the Force. Running before I could walk, so to speak. Eventually he sent me into the swamp, alone. He warned me against bringing my weapon, but I didn’t listen."

"I faced myself in there. A vision of what might yet come if I wasn’t careful. If I had fallen in that swamp, I would’ve had no one to blame but myself. The anger and impatience I had nursed would have been my downfall.”

Luke sighed. "I didn’t understand at the time. I thought it helped me, made me stronger. Made all the loss easier to bear."

He turned to Leia, grave concern lining his face. "The Dark Side is treacherous, Leia. I don’t agree that all emotion leads to darkness, but this," he touched above her heart lightly, "will lead you astray if you aren’t careful. If you don’t listen to yourself."

"I don’t know how to help you," he said, and Leia couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her brother so downcast. "You’re sensitive to the Force, but it doesn’t seem to want anything to do with you at the moment. I—I don’t know if I should train you or if it’s making things worse."

“How can you tell? What’s different?,” Leia asked, surprised that he had felt her struggles that clearly.

"It’s… like an echo when you try to use the Force. When father turned back to the light, you could _feel_ it, the rush as the darkness made way for the light," Luke looked at her with something like regret. “This feels like the opposite, like a storm drawing nearer, gathering heavy clouds around its center.”

"You can't possibly think that I'll become like him?," Leia asked incredulously. "Do you think so little of me?"

Luke shook his head. "I love you. I _trust_ you. But there's darkness in all of us, sister, and yours reminds me of his."

"That's a terrible thing to say to someone."

"I know."

They walked together in silence for a while, Leia considering his words carefully. 

It hurt that Luke would even think that she and _Vader_ were similar, but Leia had never been one to cast the opinions and wisdom of others aside without thought. And if there was a whisper at the back of her mind that said that he was right, she tried her best to ignore it. 

"I'm not you, Luke," Leia sighed, the last of her indignant anger waning as she tried to accept his words. "But I'm not Vader either. It's just... frustrating. The Force doesn't speak to me as it does to you."

"It used to," Luke bumped his shoulder against hers. "Maybe it will again. All beginnings are hard, you know."

Leia wasn’t used to being surrounded with people that knew more about her than she did herself. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it yet.

Days later, as she walked across the orange stones of the temple, Leia felt a tremor in the still air. She looked around, but no one else seemed disturbed by the sensation. Trying to brush away the feeling, she took another step towards headquarters, but she stopped again. Something was different, something strange was stirring. 

A storm must be coming, she told herself, trying to quiet the discomfort she felt. A monsoon, perhaps. The humidity _had_ been unbearable lately. It might do some good to clear the air; get the static, heavy feeling cleansed. Everybody was on edge. Many of the Rebels didn't come from jungle planets, and the climate was difficult for them to bear.

Still, there was something else in the air. Something that had nothing to do with the weather, Leia _knew_ it.

Before she realised where she was going, she stood in the cool Jedi training chamber. The massive stone walls drained the heat away and Leia felt the beads of sweat on her forehead drying. The room was empty, the training mats neatly stacked in a corner, a few dustmotes lazily flickering in the light. 

"Of course," she muttered to the empty room, "new recruits are coming in today."

Usually at least a few students would be occupying the chamber, seeking guidance from Luke, but today they had all been assigned various duties in the Temple. Luke was on a trading post half a system away, welcoming a Force-Sensitive child and their family. He was always excited about new trainees, so eager to get to know them and he insisted on welcoming each of them personally. 

Leia knelt in the empty room, and tried to picture Luke standing there at the head of the chamber, his calm words reverberating through the air. She imagined the other students in the chamber with her, the echo of their deep breaths and their surface emotions vivid in her mind. Luke’s voice was guiding them all into a slow trance, towards a loss of self. 

She listened to her own too-fast heartbeat and tried to slow it. Leia reached for the clarity that was almost in her grasp, stretched her mind out towards it, inching close enough that her mental nails scraped the surface of the slow-flowing stream and tried to pierce it. 

It was futile. The jungle whispered to her even as she tried to ignore it, a whisper that drowned out all else. It was a beckoning, a lure, and Leia stopped resisting. 

As she rose, Leia touched the blaster at her side to make sure that it was fastened correctly, a motion of habit more than a conscious thought. She paused, hand hovering above the weapon. After a moment she loosened the belt and put it down on a windowsill nearby. ‘Oh Han is going to kill me,’ she thought. 

She connected her comm link, hoping that the distance wouldn’t be too much for it. "Luke? It’s Leia. I’ll be gone for a few rotations. There's something in the jungle that I need to investigate."

A slight pause and then Luke’s voice crackled through the device. "I'll be back tomorrow, Leia. Wait for me?"

"No," Leia answered before thinking. "I have to do this alone."

Luke sighed through the comm link. "Will you take an escort at least?" They both knew she wouldn’t. A faint smile crossed her lips as she replied.

"I’ll be fine. You’ll find me if you need to." 

She felt him reaching through the Force. Nothing intrusive, just the smallest touch of concern and an unspoken message of ‘I’m here, I love you, please come back when you’re ready’ and tried to send a sensation of comfort back through their bond.

After a moment's hesitation she left the comm link next to her blaster. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right.

Leia followed the call out of the temple, only stopping to pick up a bundle of supplies. She let the Force guide her, revelling in how easy it suddenly was to reach again. At the edge of the compound, she paused. The security perimeter stopped here. Red lights flashed at intervals on the poles that marked the safe area. Beyond this was a raw wilderness, full of dangerous creatures and treacherous ground. When new recruits landed on the moon, the first thing they were briefed on was the danger of going outside of the perimeter.

She was pretty sure that Han would have a fit when he found out she was going out there.

"Deep breaths," she muttered, closing her eyes and recalling the image of Luke at the front of the class. "Let go. Trust the Force."

The unease and worry didn't fade, but the call was stronger than her fear. It bore into her bones, swirled around her in tandem with her emotions, and Leia breathed it in, an acknowledgement and a surrender. She made sure that her backpack was fastened and crossed the border.

The temple vanished behind her almost immediately.

It wasn't easy, even with the Force guiding her. The jungle was thick and at times it seemed impenetrable. More than once, sharp thorns made Leia curse and stare daggers at the offending branch. She had always been used to bruises though, even back on Alderaan—bruised knees, bruised feelings, bruised pride. She shook herself and ignored the pain.

Leia walked further into the green unknown. She repeated Luke's words and tried to let her instinct guide her towards the more amenable route, but the road was filled with frustration. Often she found herself led into a dead end, a slightly too-wide river cutting off her path, or a tree not suited for climbing being the only way of scaling a cliff. She had seen Luke jump further and higher than the barriers placed in her path and she resented the insinuation. "I'm not my brother," she muttered to no-one as she doubled back the way she came.

Hours later, Leia had begun to wonder if she had imagined the pull towards the jungle. There was no call now, no torrent of energy guiding her way. She wondered if she was a fool after all, if after everything she'd been through, this _stupid_ journey would be the end of her. She tightened her grip on a slippery vine, digging in her nails in an attempt to keep from sliding further into the deep pit she had stumbled into. 

"Maybe the Force just hates me," she said through gritted teeth as she scrambled for footing. "Maybe this was all a trick, and this all it has in store for me—ah!" Leia found a foothold on the muddy slope and used the vine to pull herself further up, scratching her bare arms on the gravel as she climbed. With a string of curses she crawled to the top of the hill and collapsed on her back.

Breathing heavily, Leia stared beyond the treetops. The last of the blue sky was fading fast, orange hues illuminating the heavy clouds coming in from the east. Sweat trickled down Leia's face as she lay there, fuming and bleeding, regretting that she'd left her comm device behind.

She didn't get up until the unbearable humidity was turning into a steady drizzle of rain. She washed the worst of the mud off of her arms and sought shelter under the canopy of trees. Apart from the death-trap of a pit a few meters away, this wasn't a half-bad spot for setting up camp. Protected on one side with dense foliage and on the other a clear view of the jungle spreading out on all sides. If the clouds hadn’t been gathering, she would have been able to see the mountains several klicks away. With an appraising look at her options, Leia unpacked the shelter from her pack and chose a spot that wouldn’t become muddy and wet during the night.

_Art by[Writehandman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writehandman)/[forcesensitivebantha](https://forcesensitivebantha.tumblr.com/)_

Leia sat with crossed legs under the tarp and stared out at the rain. She’d lit a small fire, a risky thing to do when she was close enough to a skreeg colony to hear their screams, but she needed the warmth. With a crude brush, she started untangling her hair from the mess of mud and leaves that it had become. It was a motion she’d done a hundred thousand times before, and the careful downward strokes were as familiar to her as breathing. As she worked in monotonous, even motions, her anger siphoned away, bit by bit, until nimble fingers worked the untangled hair into braids without her needing to think about it. The quiet patter of rain on the leaves overhead filled the silence with white noise, a pleasant thrum that made it easier to be in her own skin than it had been for weeks. It was difficult to stay angry at herself for being rash when she finally felt comfortable. Breathing steadily, she felt the dense jungle surrounding her, and the air itself seemed to be weighing her down.

It was difficult to move, but for once Leia didn't feel a need to.

Leia smiled slightly as she warmed the caf from her rations. The situation reminded her of Alderaan, of the week she'd spent in the woods when she was nine. She'd been so little then, so desperate for a moment of time to herself without any rules or expectations. It felt like she had done the same now—run away from her responsibilities.

The soft drizzle of rain brought back memories that she hadn't thought of in years. Of how angry her father had been. He had been frightened, though Leia hadn't realised that back then. Of how she hadn't been sorry for running away, but she'd still cried when he'd sat with her for two nights straight, sorry that he was so afraid that she'd do it again.

Which she had. Again and again until she’d grown old enough to realise that running away wasn’t a solution. That you had to face your problems, whether it be worrying about having to marry a prince of your parents choosing or fighting an Emperor, powerful beyond imagining. 

Something was happening, Leia noticed absently. Something was building, pressing against her skin, a prickling of energy that she hadn't experienced before, but she wasn't quite afraid.

She was falling. Except... The heat from the caf still warmed her fingers through the cup. The fire still made her cheeks blush with heat, staving off the night chill that was creeping in. The thrum of rain hitting the leaves overhead was there at the back of her mind, as steady and solid as the ground she sat on. The screams of the skreeg were still there, but they were becoming more and more distant.

She was falling, except in the ways she wasn't. There was another sound, a storm in her ears threatening to shatter her eardrums, a silence threatening the same. A feeling of absence, of togetherness, of everything, and of nothing.

A mound of fog clouded her vision, obscuring her view of the jungle. Leia felt light as a feather, as a pile of loose snow at their winter home on Alderaan. She let herself drift away. 

There was a tug on her consciousness, a nudge. The sensation was alien but not unwelcome. Curious, she tried to investigate the pulsating nudge, but it was intangible, untouchable. When it withdrew, she chased after it.

When she caught up, she saw herself sitting there in the glittering snow, a small child in a puffy winter coat. Her dark hair had been braided neatly that morning but had loosened after a fall. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and her snow-scuffed cheeks were red and blotchy. Leia remembered now. They'd gone sledding in the mountains. She whipped around and saw her parents running towards her younger self.

"No," she whispered and the memory faded even as they reached the small child who was now crying openly. "I don't want these memories. Not anymore." 

The vision faded entirely but Leia's throat didn't stop constricting. 

She sometimes dreamt of being back on Alderaan, soft, tender dreams in which her parents were alive again. Dreams in which she touched their almost-there hands and kissed them on their almost-there cheeks. They laughed, just the three of them, a pealing laughter echoing through the halls of the court. 

She always knew that the dreams weren’t true. They were always a tad too perfect, too soft. Their smiles slightly too familiar. She knew, but still the only thing worse than the dreams was waking up. 

She hadn’t had those dreams in years. They’d faded, bit by bit, and Leia had been relieved. After Endor the dreams had returned. Her nights became filled with tossing and turning and a keening sound that Leia could never quite recognise as herself. 

There was something terribly bitter about her being fine for years and only having nightmares after winning their greatest victory that Leia didn't want to look at too closely.

The fog billowed again and when it cleared, she heard a murmur.

"As my feet walk from the ashes of Katarr, I shall not fear, for in fear, lies death." 

A soft voice echoed across the nothingness, not much more than a murmur, but Leia could hear it as if it had been a shout.

It was a woman, Leia realised, as a vaporous form emerged from the fog, a pale woman in burgundy robes. She walked with her back straight but her head was bowed in a demure fashion similar to how Luke sometimes held himself. The stranger’s eyes were covered with a hood which caused Leia to pause. She had met Miraluka before, but the Force-Sighted race of people had been rare and far between, even before the rise of the Empire. Leia wondered if the few that she had met had been able to sense the Force in her, just by looking, if they’d known about her gift even when she herself didn’t.

The hooded woman stopped in front of Leia, her long, heavy robes rustling softly in the silence. "Sister… I know your pain. Come." The woman stretched out a slender hand and unthinkingly Leia took it. A swirl of fog encapsulated them and everything turned grey. 

A small eternity passed from the moment she took the not quite solid hand, until the emptiness passed. 

The blue sky above them was endless. The fields ahead of them were much like Alderaan, green and lush, and a tall city towered in the distance. The vista was beautiful and soft, tinged with a bittersweet happiness, like the memory of Alderaan had been. But the edges of her vision were jagged and torn. This wasn't Leia's memory. 

The woman spoke in a low, rich voice tinged with sadness."This was Katarr, before it went dark. I grew up here, learned the Force as my people had done for eons. I was happy. I thought life this way eternal, everlasting— " Leia saw a younger version of the woman in the distance. She was smiling as her long burgundy robes caught the wind and the companion beside her stumbled. Laughter from them both reached Leia as the younger woman tumbled to the ground besides her companion.

"—but I was wrong." The woman lifted a hand and the memory shattered.

Around them was a charred world, wind howling through the desolation. They hadn't moved but everything had changed. Leia saw the destroyed remnants of the city in the distance, saw the dead fields and the red of the sky. There was a hunger in the air, a deep suctioning sensation that clutched at her heart. Leia staggered from it and fell to her knees. As she touched the dirt she realised what was wrong and a gasp escaped her. 

Not looking at the woman besides her, Leia spoke with a shaking voice. "This planet… it’s all dead isn’t it? Every person, animal and plant, every last living thing? What… What happened here? What could possibly do this?" 

The woman spoke, her voice calm and monotone, though there was a tinge of emotion, a slight waver that Leia wasn't sure if she imagined. "My Lord showed us his truth. He spoke because he wanted us to see. See the innate failure of every living creature, how the Force was wasted on them. He was wrong, though I wouldn’t learn that until later. My people perished here but their emptiness remains." The woman raised her hooded head and seemed to gaze at the devastation far beyond the horizon. She continued as Leia got to her feet, still shaken by the lifelessness of a planet that should be vibrant and alive. The _wrongness_ of it made her gag. "He hungered. He fed until he was stopped or he would have devoured the entire galaxy. He very nearly consumed me." 

The woman turned to Leia. Leia shuddered at the thought of someone powerful enough to devour an entire planet. Vader had been horrifying in his own right. The cold anger that surrounded him had been personal, it had crept into your bones and breath and filled you with terror. Using the Force to destroy a planet like this though, seemed outside of his ability. Leia wondered if the Emperor, unthinkably powerful as Luke had said that he was, had been capable of this level of destruction.

The words caught up to Leia and anger rose in her throat. "Your… Lord? But… Why would you serve such a monster?!" 

The woman smiled at Leia, a tiny smile that wasn’t quite comfortable on the woman’s face. "A fall is a quiet thing. You rarely notice it as it happens. My Lord spared me the destruction on Katarr and showed me a terrible lie. I believed him."

Leia shook her head. "What kind of lie could possibly convince you to serve the man who destroyed your planet? I'd never serve Vader or the Emperor, no matter how sweet their words."

"But you may yet, though you do not wish it."

"How dare you—" Leia started to interrupt, but stopped as the woman held up her hand.

"I served him with my darkness, though I hated it. Hated him. I hungered as he did, hungered for power, clarity. Death. I never wanted the darkness. It consumed me as surely as he consumed everything else."

There was something familiar, Leia thought, about her words. About the craving. The Force flowed strongly through her in this vision, as it had done for most of her life. Since Endor, drawing on the Force had felt like drinking from a dry riverbed. Still, Leia had reached out with greedy hands, wanting to explore the world that she’d become aware of; she had pushed and pushed and pushed. 

Her father had told her once to be careful about trying to unveil secrets that weren’t her own. 

"I found my way back to the light,” the Miraluka's lips curled in a wispy smile, fondness in her tone. "She shone brightly enough to reach even me, in the dark abyss where I hid. But I cannot deny my past."

The fog swirled around them again and Leia felt it nudging at her consciousness until a familiar room materialised around them. 

The court of Alderaan. 

Her mother sat on the throne, great windows illuminating the queen, her thick braided coronet framing her face. The smile on her face was so familiar, a small, gentle smile that made Leia’s heart ache with longing. She knew that face. For years it had been the first face she’d seen in the morning and the last before sleep. It had faded lately. It was becoming more difficult to remember Breha’s soft features, and Leia felt like she was losing herself, bit by bit.

A soft sob was torn from her throat. 

There was a grief inside of her that Leia didn’t quite know where to put; there wasn't room for it in her chest, in her head, in her hands. It threatened to consume her, a quiet, stealthy sort of despair that would drown her if she wasn’t careful.

It had been there since she saw Alderaan blown to oblivion. She’d become good at pushing it away, at chipping away at it little by little, but now it came crashing down on her. 

This was different from her dreams. Like those, she knew that this wasn’t real, that Alderaan and her parents were gone, definitely, irrevocably _gone_ , but for a brief moment the illusion enveloped her. She was certain that if she tried, she could reach out and touch the soft velvet of Breha’s dress. That without question, her mother would wrap her arms around her, kiss her forehead, and that everything would be alright.

Leia knew the footsteps coming up behind her as well as she knew her mother’s face. She had listened for them every time her father had been away for his Senatorial duties, hoped to hear them on the soft rugs in the hallway outside of her bedroom.

Her mother smiled her tender smile and greeted Bail as he knelt in front of her and kissed her hand, adoration clear on both their faces. Leia yearned to run to them, to feel her father’s strong arms envelop them both and be the child in her parent’s arms again.

For the briefest moment Leia believed the vision. Forgot the war, the destruction, the heartbreak. She stepped forward. 

And then it was ripped from her. Fog enveloped the two women and a sob escaped Leia. "…No! Bring it back, please!" 

The woman shook her head. "Neither the past nor the dream will help you. Face what you fear." Their surroundings turned dark and for a long moment silence stretched on. 

A terrible mechanical breath filled the air. Leia felt the familiar chill in her bones before she saw him, and then Darth Vader emerged in front of her. Tall and imposing and every bit as dreadful as she remembered. His cape billowed in a wind she couldn’t feel and his mask reflected her face back at herself.

For a moment Leia was frozen with fear. 

A soft voice echoed from behind her. "Do not fear, for in fear lies death." The woman and Leia stood close enough to touch, the soft not-quite-there fabric brushing her fingers and providing a bit of comfort.

“How could I not fear him? He was a terror—a menace to the galaxy.”

“Yes. But that is not why you fear him. Nor why you hate him. Release your emotions.”

Staring at the image of Vader, Leia’s voice shook. "How can you expect me to forgive him? He destroyed everything! He killed my planet!" 

"I do not presume to know of forgiveness. I have not forgiven my Lord his hunger, nor will I ever. But do you not see, sister? If I allowed it, my hatred would consume me as surely as he would." 

Turning her head, Leia saw that as she herself was facing Vader, the woman was facing her own demons. A masked man as tall as Vader towered over the Miraluka. A terrible and faint whisper surrounded him and the long ragged robes revealed a dark nothingness beneath. 

There was a _hunger_ there that Leia couldn’t comprehend, something vast and primal that she had never felt before. The Miraluka’s memory of the razed surface of Katarr paled in comparison. 

“Death was what I sought, for years. He was all that filled my mind, my life. I yearned to be free, but I was afraid of what I would be without him.”

Leia looked back at Vader. Luke had always said that there was good in him and in the end he’d been right. 

She’d never been able to see it, and she didn’t want to see it now. All she saw was darkness, all she felt was his gloved hands on her arms as Alderaan was obliterated. There wasn’t anything animalistic or wild about Vader, he was as similar to the Miraluka’s Sith Lord as water and oil. Vader’s was a quieter thrum of anger and rage, but she knew the wound he’d dealt the galaxy, she’d seen the lives he’d ruined. She knew that his darkness ran deep.

Despite herself, she also saw the man who could have been her father. Luke’s words echoed in her mind, ‘your darkness reminds me of his’, and Leia looked at her own reflection in Vader’s eyes. There was fear there, and a deep loathing. 

But most of all there was a grief that she wasn’t used to facing.

Grief for the family she had lost, and for the family that might have been. After Endor Mon Mothma had given Luke an old holo of Anakin Skywalker from before his fall. Once he had explained who the tall man with the familiar wry smirk were, Leia had walked out of the room without a second glance at the recording. The knowledge that there had been a man before the suit, a good man with ambitions much like her own had been too much to bear.

It still was. She wanted to run, to hide from the part of her that she didn’t want to acknowledge.

As she looked at the glossy mask, an acceptance came over her. She couldn’t deceive herself. She had been too close to letting herself be pulled down the same path that Vader had taken.

The woman gestured. "Come." As she spoke their surroundings faded away once more and they stood in an ocean of grey fog. Leia drew a deep breath, relieved that the crushing darkness emanating from the Sith Lords had disappeared with them. 

The Miraluka turned and faced Leia. "A choice must be made, lest it be made for you. Do not fear." She disappeared in smoke and low murmurs and before Leia could utter a word she found herself on the jungle floor again.

The rain had stopped. The fire had gone out. Yavin IV was cold and quiet, as was the caf she was still holding loosely in her hands. Leia stretched her fingers, winched at the cracking noise as she straightened her back. 

The world was muted somehow, asleep, though she could feel the jungle teeming with life. Everything was calmer now than it had been earlier and Leia breathed deeply of the still air.

As she built a fire she looked inwards for the first time in a long while. There was something raw and angry in her heart, something she'd tucked away for too long, hidden from herself more than anyone. It scratched with every breath, clawing with anguish and fear on the walls she'd unknowingly built.

She couldn’t run from it. 

Luke had told her that she was his sister, and Leia had known it to be true, had felt it before she could name what the familiarity was. She knew it and she loved it, embraced it with everything she had. 

But not every part of the revelation was a joy.

Sometimes, if she had begged him long enough, Bail had told Leia fragments of stories of her birth mother, whispers of a noble woman, a _good_ woman. Not enough that Leia had ever been able to string together the truth of who her mother had been, but enough to appease a curious child. Enough that the memory of the woman she remembered, the impression of a sad, beautiful woman, was sweet, not frustrating. 

Bail had never talked about her father, no matter how much she pleaded. Leia had wondered at that. Perhaps he hadn’t known her birth father. The secrecy could be due some other reason—Leia thought up multitudes of scenarios. Maybe he was one of the guards at the palace, maybe he was a spy and Bail couldn’t trust her with the secret of his identity.

Leia grew and Bail told her other secrets, big, dangerous secrets. He still wouldn’t tell her anything of her birth father. She thought about him more often than she liked, tried to imagine what he had been like, how his voice had sounded. The mystery gnawed at her, but eventually she resigned herself to never knowing about him, never meeting him or touching his hands. 

At the worst moment of her life, she’d felt him at her back, felt his hands holding her shoulders tightly in place. As she watched her entire world disappear into fire and dust, he had been there with her, ensuring that it happened. He had been there—and she hadn’t known.

She’d never hated Vader as much as she’d hated the Emperor until then. She’d been certain that Vader had been nothing but a puppet wrecking havoc all over the galaxy. Evil in his own right, but a somehow lesser evil than the puppeteer pulling the strings from the shadows.

After the destruction of Alderaan, Leia became less sure if evil was quantifiable like that.

With the revelation of Luke being her brother she had pushed the implication from her mind, rejected that Vader had any part of her heritage. She tried to focus on having a brother, of having a _family_ again. She’d agreed to let him teach her how to use the Force, but with every lesson everything became more and more muddled. The more she pushed, the more afraid she became. The more she reached for the Force through gritted teeth and sheer will, the more she feared losing herself in the process.

The jungle breathed with her now. The calm surrounded her, the Force flowed strongly and smoothly, without struggle. There was an understanding now that hadn’t been there before. ‘It’s a surrender,’ Leia thought and smiled. ‘Luke kept telling me, but I didn’t listen.’

She would be better, she decided as she warmed her hands by the small fire. Better than her birth-father and better than every fallen, hate-filled Force-user who had decided to keep falling. 

The fear was still there. Fear of becoming like Vader. Of losing herself in the muddled waters of the Force. Of failing herself and her parents. 

Being the daughter of Darth Vader would a heavy mantle to bear, she knew. She would carry it with the straight back and ceaseless courage that the Organas had taught her. She could embrace the duality of both her families and not lose herself, of this she was now certain.

Leia rose a while later, as the light broke over the horizon. From her vantage point she saw the prisma storm begin, a billion glittering droplets of water in the atmosphere of Yavin IV became a magnificent cascade of tiny rainbows. Swirling beams of multi-coloured light covered the sky for a minute and then faded from view. The sun warmed the jungle and almost immediately it woke in a cacophony of sound and life. 

Leia sighed and turned to leave. She slung her bag over her shoulder and closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the steady stream of energy surrounding her. 

The Force would lead her home. 

**Author's Note:**

> A massive thank you to my beta [celinamarniss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celinamarniss)  
> who was a HUGE help in wrangling this fic into shape. Without her it would be very different (and much more unfocused) story <3  
> Another thanks to [writehandman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writehandman) for stepping in as a pinchhitter and creating a lovely piece of art <3


End file.
